I gave Brigham a rattle to hold and he played with it for a good 10 minutes. It was so sweet:) He's 3 1/2 months now. Over the last week, he has done a lot of new things: Rolled from tummy to back all by himself, laughed out loud (a real laugh this time, not just high pitch squealing/"haaauuh" like he usually does), and grabbing and holding more things with his hands. It's exciting to see him growing and figuring out how to do things!

It's Almost Winter

Over the weekend, Ted and I went to The Legends Mall by Kansas City. Neither of us had ever been there, so we walked around and discovered some really neat stores/restaurants. The place above is called "T-Rex." It has all sorts of dinos and other prehistoric animals covering the walls and hanging from the ceiling. And they all move! Even the lady bugs and grasshoppers were fluttering their wings if you looked close enough. It was very cool. I want to come back some time when we have a group of people and we can all sit under the giant jellyfish booth that you can sort of see in the background of the picture.
We got our Christmas tree up and decorated this week! Milo's panther ornament was put on the tree by Milo himself. And Brigham's first ornament is a StarWars Rebel Snowspeeder (whatever that is, but Ted seems to know all about it and says Brigs will love it when he's older and can play with it) Our lights outside are up on the house, and we even decorated the new arch in the backyard. It's getting very festive around here. Just got some Celtic Christmas cd's in the mail today:) And if I don't get around to it tonight, tomorrow I'm going to bake SuGaR CoOkIeS!!

We're enjoying the last days of fall around here. Our red Japanese Maple lost all its leaves the other day.I got a bunch of spring bulbs planted over the past week. If all goes well, I should have plenty of grape hyacinths, white and purple crocus, a big magenta hyacinth, and some fressias around the yard. Last weekend Brent, Kim, Alex, Randy, and Ben came to visit. Friday night we went downtown. And Saturday we spent the afternoon building my latest project-an archway to go on the path between the two gardens. It was nice that they helped out. It would have taken me and Ted way longer than a few hours to build it by ourselves. Thanks guys!

Hunting and Halloween

Me and Ted were so excited because yesterday was opening day of duck season! We went out by Clinton Lake and took Brigham along on his first hunting trip. Don't worry, we earmuffed his little ears. Let me tell you, it's quite the hassle trying to get all of the camo gear, decoys, 2 guns, a diaper bag and a baby across a shallow pond into the middle of some weeds. So anyway, on to the good stuff...we saw a few ducks moving, but they always seemed to be pretty far away. I took a shot at 2...missed, then later on Ted took a shot..and also missed. No luck for us so far, but we're hoping to get out there early some morning, and maybe get a babysitter next time lol.
FYI the gun is on safety in the picture below.

He're just a picture I took today before we left for church. Our little farmer, he's even got boots!
Tonight was Halloween, and we dressed Brigham up as a slug. We caught him slugging around in the garden this afternoon, hahah!

Fall Time

The past week have been full of fall time activities. Brigham has quite the assortment of Halloween costumes this year. His aunt Tess and Uncle Jared got him a Frankenstein t-shirt with matching socks. So I dressed him in that to go to a Halloween playdate last week at the library.
This Sunday at church was Brigham's dedication, so Ted's parents, as well as my family came down to celebrate that. Carolyn arrived earlier in the week. She had fun babysitting Brigs while Ted and I bicycled to a pep rally downtown for KU's homecoming. Anyway, she is hunting all this next week up by Hanover, in hopes of shooting a deer.
Saturday night, Ted, Brig, me, Carolyn, and Scott went to a haunted train ride in Balwin City. It was fun, and a lot spookier than we thought it would be. It even gave Ted the idea of volunteering for being one of the spook characters next year! So we had Brigham all dressed up in his skunk outfit that my aunt Beth sewed. Aww he was so cute! All the kids thought he was the best, and kept trying to say "hi" to the little skunk.

Lake Eufala

So to celebrate our 1st anniversary, over the weekend we went to Lake Eufala, Oklahoma. It was awesome! We got to stay on a houseboat that could sleep up to 8 people. It had a full kitchen, bedrooms, waterslide, and we could drive it either downstairs or up on the top deck! Since it was humongous for just the 3 of us, we invited our friends Matt and Lauren to come along. It was a nice long drive to get there..and several wrong directions were taken (not our fault), but we made it and the captain let us go out on the boat Friday night even though we were "late for check-in." I still can't believe they just let us drive the boat out by ourselves. Twice we thought we broke the boat..haha long story. Anyhow, we had fun cooking on the boat, laying out on beaches, and cruising around finding new coves to explore.
Here's a video showing a tour of the boat:

Oh, and Ted got me a little suprise for our anniversary that I'm pretty excited about! It's got "Toots in a bun" engraved on the side of it. Looking forward to duck season again this year!

Renaissance Festival

Last week was busy. Grandma Carolyn came for a short visit, and helped us out by babysitting. I ended up getting caught up with everything I wanted to get done, including getting my hair done. It's finally back to my brown natural color and a little shorter..but still long. Anyway, I feel better about it. On Saturday Ted, Jared, Tess, and I went to the Ren. Festival in Bonner Springs. This year we decided to dress the parts, so the boys were dressed like pirates, while Tess and I sported wench attire. Even Brigham was dressed up like an elf or sheep or something..We all looked good, but suprisingly none of the "tourists" asked us anything, so we couldn't show off our amazing old English accents..hah!

After the festival we headed to Atchison, where we were greeted with all the folks from Lincoln. Besides the McKinney's, none of the Abel 6ers (and others) had met Brigham yet. Brent treated us with his famous smoked ribs for supper. I think everyone had a good time!

Also, during the weekend we ended up getting new bedding! We put flannel sheets on it, and we both love it!!! "It breathes well, as opposed to the 'rain tarp from Walmart' that we've been sleeping under," says Ted. I don't think I've slept this good since that spare bed at Mom and Dad's house.